Three months ago I had a corner office with six floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a nature preserve. Today I’m in a converted storage closet which shares a wall with the Men’s room and I can hear every flush. Three months ago I had an executive administrative assistant and a secretary who handled all my scheduling, filing, and correspondence. Today I am scheduling, filing and corresponding for a nice woman who doesn’t realize I have a copy of Outlook for Dummies in my bottom drawer. Three months ago I made $105,000 as the director of the external and governmental relations for a major firm. Today I make $45,000 as, well, I’m not exactly sure what I am. I used to have a name plate on the double glass doors of the suite. Now I don’t even have a business card.

How did I get here? Welcome to the Devil Wears Dockers, my personal chronicles of working for a boss from Hell. Prepare to be amazed, stunned, disgusted, delighted, horrified, intrigued, and amused. Sometimes you’ll be jealous you’re not me but mostly you’ll be grateful you’re not me. That’s because three months ago I had the corner office but I also had a boss who was busy maneuvering me out of the organization. He said he had to. He said I knew too much. He was right.

Unlike a lot of people in my position, I didn't lose my job. I quit it. My less sympathetic friends insist I chose to leave it and have only myself to blame for the sudden downtick in my standard of living but those who know me best--and I count myself among them--know I had no choice under the circumstances. My boss made Machiavelli look like Mother Theresa. Assuming Machiavelli was not just an opportunist but a bully and sexual predator too

So now I'm in a secretarial position and, frankly, I suck at this. People get annoyed when I mess up scheduling a meeting. And I want to tell them that the reason I don’t know how to schedule a meeting is because I always had someone else schedule them for me. But I don’t want my current bosses to regret hiring someone overqualified for this job. In fact, I consider myself an ambassador for overqualified workers everywhere. I even have a name for people like me. We’re ONE. Overqualified in the New Economy. I spent a lot of time dumbing-down my resume so I could get a job and spent a lot of time memorizing the proper responses for job interviews. “No, I’m not overqualified. I prefer to think of myself as fully qualified.”

In truth, I never had to make a case for myself because the person who hired me never asked me why I wanted the job, or whether I realized it was a secretarial position. I’m sure she had expert secretaries lining up for miles for this job, people who knew how to create Excel spreadsheets and use that beast-of-a-copy-machine we have in the work room. But she gave the job to me and I’ve always wanted to ask her why. Maybe I will someday.

Read my chronicles in The Devil Wears Dockers http://www.devilwearsdockers.com

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Sara Susannah Katz wrote the long running Single in the Suburbs for Match.com and MSN and is the author of Wife Living Dangerously (Warner Books).